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1.1.6-Pilferingapples
Brick!club Book 1: Fantine, Ch.6 How He Protected His House In Which We Find THE CANDLESTICKS OF FATE Seriously has any prop ever been of more importance while not possessing any actual power whatsoever? But I’m getting ahead of myself… A long architectural description of the house mostly serves to depress me. I get that we’re supposed to be increasingly impressed with the Bishop’s piety and—look, I think it’s great that he’s willing to forsake all earthly comforts. That’s wonderful. If your faith can keep you warm than toss that blanket asidde and go for it. But his sister…! SHE JUST WANTS A NICE COUCH, I really don’t think that’s an obscene luxury. I am contemplating replacing my own couch this very moment! I get that it’s an extra but then if you’re going to be that strict why bother having furniture at all? Just-just—ugh. What really slays me is the line about “who ever attains the ideal?” I know that it’s a joke, but it’s a really bitter joke to me. There are dreams that cannot be, but BASIC FURNITURE SHOULD NOT BE ONE OF THEM. An impossible dream can be quite empowering when it’s clearly impossible— I might want to be The Best Possible Artist and Draw All The Things, and I know it’s never gonna happen, but trying for it make me happy. But a VERY POSSIBLE SIMPLE DREAM denied for no good reason or necessity seems more like a way to breed bitterness. Let your sister have her couch, Myriel! Sigh. I still really like Myriel! How could artsy me ever dislike someone who claims “The beautiful is as useful as the useful.”? But I feel as though he’s somewhat taking for granted the people nearest him. It’s possibly an easy thing for him to do as he’s used to ignoring his own needs, but given his authority over them both (Baptistine especially has been drawn as utterly reverent towards him) and the sheer power issues of gender and station in play, I can’t stop feeling like he really needs to be more aware of them, and considerate in the full meaning of the word. Look at your housemates, Bishop, think about them, ok? But of course that’s not his job here. His job here is to fanboy about those candlesticks make it clear that he has no fear of other humans, even criminals (DRAMATIC MUSIC STING!!). The whole “God will guard us or nothing will” attitude…Myriel, I get that you’re a bishop. But we have pithy quotes in the workaday world, and one of them is “Trust in God but lock the barn door” Oh no, he keeps cows, I certainly hope he locks THEIR door, or they’ll just wander off. In the fight between divine intelligence and cows, I tend to bet on the stupidity of the cows winning the day. Tomorrow: STILL NOT VALJEAN HAHAH psyched you OUT with those candlesticks! … This whole thing must have been SO weird to read back before anyone could learn the basic plot with a Google search. Commentary Gascon-en-exile Ugh, Hugo’s getting in touch with his inner Balzac here, giving us these interminably long physical descriptions that overall suggest the tone of a setting while meaning very little singly. I’m rather glad most novel/short story writers by the 20th century started leaving this practice behind - this attention to detail works so much better in visual media, especially given how dated and/or localized some of these pieces are (how many people today know what a prie-Dieu chair is without looking it up, for example?). He lives very humbly, his sister and housekeeper join him in the asceticism without much complaint and this is a Good Thing as far as the author is concerned. Moving on… The one bit of description that really does matter on its own is the bishop’s ownership of the silverware and silver candlesticks. Of course there has to be something precious in the house for Valjean to steal, but I always wondered about the significance of silver here - and there has to be some, because Hugo loves symbols and he stretches this out through the whole Brick and ascribes to them the sort of reverential meaning usually given to explicitly religious iconography. The bishop’s crucifix is definitely not silver but copper, so it gets left out. The first thing that comes to my mind is that argent is both the word for silver and a general term for money, but I would have to be more familiar with symbology in French literature to say for certain if that indicates a more intrinsic cultural association of silver with something inherently valuable (as opposed to, say, gold). One could also think about the fact that the bishop’s silver is, as I said, not religious in nature (even if the silver plating that uses to be on his vases “''était un genre de luxe episcopal'',” flower vases aren’t normally spiritual); even though Les Mis is an intensely spiritual book, there’s a hefty amount of secularized morality as well. I don’t want to babble too much further on, but “''le beau est aussi utile que l’utile''" ("the beautiful is as useful as the useful") is couched in a then-growing tradition of anti-utilitarianism, with the biggest name probably Théophile Gautier to whom the phrase "l’art pour l’art" ("art for art’s sake") is attributed. I’m pretty sure some other meta posters have talked about the relationship between these two - close friends, I think? Anyway, that would eventually culminate in the decadents at the end of the century with people like Rimbaud, Pater, and Wilde - and that’s my first mention of gayness in this reading. Any philosophy that involves mansex at its apex is a good one in my book. Kcrabb88 The candlesticks of fate indeed! :) Last night my roommate and fellow LM fan and I were watching the movie and her boyfriend was watching it with us for the first time, and we pointed out the candlesticks in the very beginning so he would know why we shrieked every other time they appeared. Anyhow, while this chapter mostly serves to further explain how the bishop manages to skate by on what seems an impossible budget, and just how selfless he is on behalf of the poor, I did find the quote “it would be difficult for me to give up eating from silver” a bit of a interesting addition to the description of all his sacrifices in the rest of the chapter. The silver is one of the few luxuries he allows, and for me it sort of seems like Hugo is bringing it back down for us JUST a little, reminding us that the bishop is still human, and in the end only gives up that silver in order to save Valjean from being carted back to prison, so I feel like his brief mention of wanting to keep the silver here early on emphasizes that it is a sacrifice on his part to give it up, and I think that’s easy to forget considering he gives everything up. I also just love how there are just nuggets of gold even in the more mundane chapters of this novel, and in this particular chapter I was very touched by the “The beautiful is as useful as the useful. Perhaps more so.” Because I think it’s easy for people to dismiss the “beautiful” things as indulgences when really they are just as necessary to a happy, full-filled life as the “useful” things. Oh, Hugo, how you make me think, just all the time. I will say I did feel a bit bad for Madame Baptistine though, the poor woman, she did just want a nice couch which is not asking a lot, and it does speak to the gender roles of the time in that she didn’t really argue the point with him. Not that all women of the period followed the gender roles, etc, but she seems to, and I think she also realizes how much giving to the poor means to him, and so sacrifices her desires for his. The line about “but whoever does to attain his ideal” kind of punched me in stomach though, because even though here he was talking about her simple desire for some nice furniture, I couldn’t help but think “Are you hinting at later Hugo, because you’re NOT FUNNY.”’ But I’m really loving reading this bit by bit, because it allows me to catch so many details I hadn’t before!